Atlanta
by Quentin2
Summary: His head is pounding, he can't write and three months seems like an eternity. Carter checks into rehab. Rated for language.


_**Author's Note**: _I thought it might be interesting to see rehab through Dr. Carter's eyes, especially since we only get to see so little of it on the show. It's been a very long time since I've written ER fics, but I still love the show as much as ever and decided to give this a whirl. Please read and enjoy and your feedback is always greatly appreciated! :)

_****__Disclaimer_: I don't own ER, though I wish I did.

* * *

_**Day One: Check-In**_

He tries concentrating on the heat.

It's hard to believe how hot it is here. In Chicago, it's still spring – the mornings are still cool enough to justify wearing a jacket out the door; the warm air dissipates within a hour of sundown so the evenings are chilly. He hadn't yet needed to turn on his AC.

But Atlanta is so hot he wants to rip his shirt off, fall asleep in a bathtub of ice. Sweat trickles down the back of his neck and pools underneath his shirt collar. His face feels sticky and his fingers thick. Even his scar is throbbing, a constant reminder of how everything went wrong in a matter of seconds.

He wants to blame the sweats on the heat; he doesn't want to admit why his body is betraying him. He doesn't quite believe he's done anything wrong.

In the cab that Benton has called, he manages to work his tie off and tries to unbutton his dress shirt. His hands are shaking uncontrollably and the buttons are too small for him to grasp properly.

"Fuck," he mutters when his fingers slip again. He imagines gripping each side of the shirt and ripping it open, buttons flying, ticking against the window, the ripped pleather seats, the back of the cabbie's head. He just wants the damn thing off – he doesn't care if he ruins it. Indeed, he's probably already ruined it the way he's been sweating.

Benton glances at him. They have barely spoken since Benton convinced him to get on the plane. Carter doesn't know what to say. In the back of his mind – that tiny part of him that always knew the drugs were wrong; that woke up every morning trying to convince him to get help, to talk to someone – he knows he's disappointed Benton.

His mentor.

"You okay man?" Benton asks. His brow is scrunched into a frown and Carter can tell he's trying to decide whether or not to help him.

Carter mumbles something noncommittal, turning away. He is not, God damnit, going to let someone unbutton his shirt for him. He clenches his teeth and starts working on the button again.

He hates that question: "Are you okay?" People have been asking him that question for three months, but he knows that no one really cares to know the answer. What would they say if he told the truth? If when one of his coworkers asked him if he was okay he said –

"No, I'm not okay. I nearly died and Lucy did die. I'm barely holding it together, the only thing that gets me though the day are the drugs and the only thing that gets me though the night is the possibility that I might not wake up in the morning."

But that's not the correct answer.

* * *

By the time they reach the rehab center – not a hospital but an innocuous antebellum house nestled into a tree-lined street – his brain is revolting. He's never felt this bad before in his life.

This is worse than all those sleepless nights over the last few months rolled into one.

It's is worse than lying on that cold hospital floor, watching Lucy's life bleed from her.

It's even worse than watching Bobby's body be lowered into his grave.

He can't think straight. He's having trouble breathing and he's shaking even harder than he was in the cab. He's still trying to think about how hot he is, but his brain won't let him. All he can think about is getting another fix.

On the plane, he tried to buy some liquor. Vodka, gin, anything. Just something to take the edge off. Benton shot him an angry look before ordering him a club soda.

"I didn't realize alcohol was an illicit drug," Carter replied dryly after the stewardess had moved on to another row.

"It's not a good idea to show up to rehab drunk," Benton observed and Carter fell silent, feeling like a chastised child.

He was so sick of everyone condescending to him.

Actually, at the moment he just feels sick. Benton steps forward to check him in and he leans against the oak paneled wall, feeling faint. His eyelids sag, his temples throbbing.

Benton tells the woman at the admit desk that someone should have called ahead – they should be expecting him. What would happen if they didn't accept him? He imagines the attendant shaking her head turning them out of this beautiful, well appointed house. He pictures the look on Mark and Kerry's faces when he and Benton arrive back at the hospital tomorrow morning. The shock, the anger, the confusion. He'd laugh. What would they do when they found out the rehab turned him down?

Curses! Foiled again!

When he opens his eyes, the receptionist is standing in front of him, a clipboard extended towards him.

"You can have a seat over there," she says, nodding towards a bench down the hall.

He can barely read the tiny print on the admission form. The words have turned into vacillating squiggles that taunt him, reforming into curse words whenever he's on the cusp of deciphering them.

Then he sees it, hidden among the obligatory legalese at the top of the form.

"Ninety days?" He spits the words out. If Benton doesn't do something soon, he's going to lose an entire summer in this hellhole. "This is a _three month_ program?"

A flicker of doubt flashes over Benton's face. Carter can tell that he's cracking. "Yeah…I-I guess so," he says, uncertain.

"Can you send me some clothes or do they issue prison garb around here?" His head is pounding, he can't write and three months seems like an eternity. He can't handle any of this anymore.

"You okay?"

He wants to scream – there's that question again.

"The pen doesn't work. Do you have a pen?" he yells in the general vicinity of the receptionist.

Benton is becoming less and less convinced of this plan by the minute. He finally takes pity on him and argues his case before the receptionist.

_Just give me some fucking compazine or phyntinol or something. I'd even settle for some crack at this point. _

He wants to die.

* * *

That bitch of a receptionist convinces Benton to leave. His last words are ridiculous. Carter would laugh if he weren't so miserable.

"You…uh…you good from here?"

What should he say? No? No, instead he gives the rote response that Benton wants to hear: "Yeah, I guess so."

The receptionist is a masochist. She leads him up flights after flight of stairs, bartering his good behavior for relief of his symptoms. She's taking him to group therapy.

Group Therapy.

He spits something unpleasant over the banister, pausing to watch it drip towards the pristine wooden floors blow. If he vomits all over the staircase does he get a free pass from this meeting?

She tells him that group meets whenever a new patient checks in, even if – as he did – the patient arrives in the middle of the night.

"Group therapy is not what I need right now." What he needs is a fix.

He is sorely tempted to take her advice and find the dealers on 10th and Piedmont. He actually might if he didn't have to retrace his steps along all those stairs.

* * *

There are around a dozen people already gathered in the meeting room when he arrives. Twenty-four pairs of bleary eyes meet his. The group is in different states of dress – and undress. Apparently everyone was roused from their beds, judging by the prevalence of pajamas as the garment of choice. There are nine men, counting himself, four women. Most of them don't really look like drug addicts, but then again, they don't really look like doctors either.

Only two of the group members seem to be his age. The man is a sandy blonde, in a white t-shirt and grey sweats. He's only wearing one sock, Carter notes. His hair sticks up in the back and he seems to be dozing off when Carter enters the room. How did this guy get to be a doctor?

He thinks suddenly of Dave. Was it really only this morning when Dave tried to unscrew a screw from a patient's leg with a manual screwdriver? He feels like time has stopped. Maybe he'll wake up tomorrow and discover that this is all a guilty dream, another trick his mind is playing on him to try and convince him that he shouldn't be taking painkillers.

The only other person in the room under thirty-five is a woman, small, too thin to be healthy. Her long, black hair is folded into a messy braid that drapes carelessly over he shoulder and her mascara is smudged, melding with the dark circles around her eyes. Her eyes are so brown they're almost black and her gaze is level, unflinching. She's tucked into her chair, dressed in black yoga pants and a black and grey long sleeved shirt.

There's only one seat available, between this woman and a man who looks to be in his mid-forties. He's slowly balding – sort of like Mark – and seems to be having some sort of a midlife crisis, if his unfortunately loud Hawaiian shirt was any indicator of his mental state.

Carter felt his stomach flip. He doesn't belong here.

The nausea had progressed to the point that he felt that he was going to collapse. The meeting begins around him and he hopes he looks like he's listening – he's not. The group introduces themselves and he misses all their names. He doesn't talk. All he can do is shake and pray that he's not going to completely melt here in front of all these strangers.

Next to him, the woman is watching him, nervously chewing on her nail. She's appraising him. "It gets worse," she murmurs during a lull in the conversation.

He blinks. "I don't think it possibly can."

She snorts, bemused. "It's only when you don't think it can get any worse that it always does."


End file.
